7.01.2025

Credit: SSC

The Swedish Armed Forces, through the Swedish Defence Materiel Administration (FMV), have tasked the Swedish Space Corporation with creating a capability to launch satellites into orbit from the Esrange Space Center.

The Esrange Space Center was built in the 1960s in northern Sweden and has been used to launch hundreds of suborbital missions to space. In January 2023, the Swedish Space Corporation (SSC), the state-owned enterprise that manages the operation of the space center, inaugurated the new Complex 3C launch facility. The facility is designed to support orbital rocket launches, which marks a significant expansion of Esrange’s capabilities. However, at the time of its inauguration, no company had yet signed on to utilize the facility for orbital launches.

Since then, SSC has signed agreements with South Korea’s Perigee Aerospace and US-based Firefly Aerospace. However, both companies have launch facilities closer to home, which they plan to utilize before conducting operations from Esrange. Firefly, for instance, already operates from Vandenberg and has additional facilities planned at Wallops and Cape Canaveral. As a result, there would need to be a compelling reason for these companies to venture so far from their production facilities.

On 4 October, the Swedish government allocated one billion kronor (€85.4 million) to its Armed Forces to strengthen the country’s space capabilities. One of the key elements of the project is to “establish a basic satellite launch capability from Esrange.” However, this initiative does not include the development of a rocket capable of providing that capability. Instead, it will focus on “expanding the infrastructure at the Esrange space base, as well as enabling the Swedish Armed Forces to send a number of satellites into space.” Put plainly, it appears to allocate funding to guarantee the purchase of launches.

In June 2024, when SSC announced that Firefly would launch its Alpha rocket from Esrange, the press release stated that the pair “signed a collaborative agreement to jointly launch satellites.” The press release further stated that “together, Firefly and SSC are establishing an orbital launch service in Europe with a flight-proven launch vehicle, supporting commercial, civil, and defense customers.” With the added context from an 18 December 2024 FMV press release, it appears that the country’s armed forces have, or will, guarantee launches to Firefly to incentivize the company to launch its rockets from Esrange.

Quelle: European Spaceflight